Program

Nov 29, 2013 - Dec 3, 2013

Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013

Czech films featured at a festival of new Romanian cinema organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Romanian Film Initiative.

Film as
propaganda tool. Filmmaking as metabolic process. Throw in a triple dose of
Transylvanian flavor from a popular series of Red Westerns; the complete works
of one of The New York Times’ 20 Directors to Watch, Corneliu Porumboiu;
Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear award winner Child’s Pose; and the
World Premiere of Closer to the Moon; and you’ll have the 8th edition of
Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema.

Co-presented
with the Romanian Film Initiative and in collaboration with Transilvania
International Film Festival. This year's festival continues at the Jacob
Burns Film Center, December 5 – 10.

Jiri Menzel's (Closely
Watched Trains, 1966) absurdist satire of authoritarian reeducation
manages to combine political critique with audacious celebrations of
liberation. While filmed during the Prague Spring of 1968, which saw a
loosening of authoritarian controls over Czechoslovakian citizens, by the time
of the film's completion the Soviet Union had invaded the nation.

Preceding the mid-60s vanguard known as the Czech New
Wave, the second film by Slovakian director Stefan Uher did much to push the
boundaries of acceptable Socialist Realism. The episodic narrative follows
Fajolo (Marian Bielik) and Bela (Jana Belakova), a casual teenage couple at the
end of the school year. As Fajolo heads to a mandatory work-camp for the
summer, Bela grapples with the claustrophobia of her tense family life. As
their lives overlap despite their separation, an existential portrait of this
particular time begins to emerge.

Part of Special Program: Creative Freedom Through CinemaMaking Waves continues its special program about the
relationship between arts and politics, focusing on film as a propaganda tool
and inviting the Czech Republic and Slovakia to join in the conversation.
Special screenings of landmark films by Dan Pita, Mircea Veroiu, Stefan Uher
and Jiri Menzel will be accompanied by a panel. Presented in partnership with
the Romanian National Film Center, Czech Center New York and the Slovak Film
Institute, with the leading support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding.